Linda Ronstadt Diagnosed With Parkinson's Disease

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The 67-year-old singer revealed in a recent interview with AARP magazine that she was diagnosed with the degenerative neurological disease eight months ago after she was having difficulty singing.

"I couldn't sing and I couldn't figure out why," she tells AARP Magazine. "I knew it was mechanical. I knew it had to do with the muscles, but I thought it might have also had something to do with the tick disease that I had. And it didn't occur to me to go to a neurologist.

"Parkinson's is very hard to diagnose, so when I finally went to a neurologist and he said, 'Oh, you have Parkinson's disease,' I was completely shocked," she added. "I wouldn't have suspected that in a million, billion years."

Unfortunately for the 11-time Grammy Award winner it sounds like she may never sing again.

"No one can sing with Parkinson's disease. No matter how hard you try," she laments.

Ronstadt told the magazine that she's been experiencing symptoms for the last eight years, and she attributed them to a tick bite and a past shoulder injury that she thought was the reason her hands started shaking.

She currently uses aids to walk and often uses a wheelchair to get around.

Ronstadt isn't the only star suffering from the disease -- actor Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1991, and legendary boxer Muhammad Ali has suffered from Parkinson's Syndrom, a form of the ailment, since he was diagnosed in 1984.